Interview With CertifiedTurbulenceTraining Daniel Woodrum

Hey everyone this is Mike Whitfield with Turbulencetraining.com and I have a very special treat for you. We actually will be talking with Daniel Woodrum, Certified Turbulence Trainer and CN, he runs two very thriving kickboxing gyms. A LOT of success.

We are going to talk about metabolic density training, why it works, how you can incorporate it in your own workouts, and how you can get awesome results in your grandpa’s kitchen, living room; wherever. And of course Daniel is going to share some of his secretes that has gotten his clients great results.

Mike: So Daniel welcome to the call, buddy.

Daniel: Thanks good to be here Mike, I appreciate it.

Mike: Absolutely, I know you have two very busy gyms that are very successful including clients that have some amazing results. We are going to talk about that. But before we do that we certainly want to thank you for taking the time out of your busy scheduled to talk us. Now for those on the call that have not heard about you; tell us a little about yourself.

Daniel: Yeah, Absolutely Mike. My name is Daniel also known as DWood which Mike has nicked named me. I am a Certified Turbulence Trainer and CN. For those of you who don’t know what a CN is, that a Certified Ninja. But, seriously I live in South Carolina where I own two kickboxing gyms like Mike mentioned.

I opened up my first gym a few years ago and the second gym opened just under a year ago. Like, Mike said their both going very well right now, and I am pleased with the direction everything is going in right now.

So, how I got started. I always had a passion for fitness; I actually started working-out back in high school. I started working the front desk and got this view of how people were training. It’s funny now that I look back at it because I would see members come in on a regular basis and I would see this look on their faces and none of them would ever look any different.

I would see them do cardio for an hour, then go to the weight and do some isolation exercisers for about 10 or 15 minutes and would think to myself “Man…. they are working out really hard and why don’t they look any different?”

Or I would see members come in and do some warm-ups and go straight to the weight / exercise area and I would see them do compound movements, bodyweight exercises, short interval like jump ropes, sprints and I would think to myself, “WOW these people are working out for 30 minutes, this is half the time that everyone else is doing in the gym and they are the ones that are improving on their body composition.”

That’s when I started doing more research and really started to get more interested in the fitness industry. So, fast forward a couple years later, I stumbled across Craig Ballantyne, kind of by accident. I happened to be reading someone’s blog where they mentioned Craig, so I started following Craig’s blogs and started reading his emails. I started to trust him and his message. At that time I was in college and broke all the time but what little money I had I would spend it on Craig’s programs. I remember one night my buddy saying “Hey Daniel lets go out” and I said “I wish I could but I don’t have any money right now I just spent it on this exercise program”. And of course they still give me a hard time to this day about it.

It’s kind of funny now when I look back it at now, it’s one of the best investments I have made. I am now a Certified Turbulence Trainer. Mike, I think me, you and Scott are one of the first five Certified Turbulence Trainers under Craig. I think that’s pretty cool to be with it from the beginning.

So getting back to it, my sophomore year in collage I did an internship at a specialized fitness facility which is part of the hospital system. That’s when I really knew I belonged in the fitness industry. I have worked with everyone from professional athletes to your everyday clients to even TBI patience’s. I have learned a lot from that job, and a lot from the more experienced trainers there that were helping with the process so after college I ended up getting hired on there to work full-time.

I worked in that facility for about a year and I met a gentleman who introduced me to kickboxing. I grew up doing martial arts like a lot of people did and I had kind of fallen out of it. This gentleman took me under his wing and showed me how kickboxing can translate to such an amazing workout. At the time he was the current middle weight world champion. He showed me the ins and outs of kickboxing and how it pertained to fitness. Now, two years later, I run two successful kickboxing gyms, it has really taken over the community here in Charleston and I am very excited about that. So, that’s a quick introduction to myself and how I got myself to where I am today.

Mike: Very Cool, and of course we are going to talk more about this kicking boxing approach because you obviously have had a lot of great success with your clients and lot of your clients are literally additive to exercise and we can talk about that later.

Frist I want to talk about Metabolic Density Training. This is kind of a new concept for a lot of people and it’s an amazing way to workout. You actually have kind of a twist to Metabolic Training. So tell us about your kick boxing approach at your facility. And why is it so different for your normal everyday Joe who goes to the big corporate gym and does regular resistance training workout.

Daniel: Yes absolutely, so my facility is very small it’s only about 1200 sqft. I know you might be thinking to yourself “How in the heck can you train so many people in such a small space.” That’s the beauty of this program you really don’t need much space at all.

When you walk into a lot of these big box gyms where there are hundreds and hundreds of cardio machines, weight lifting machines, and a bunch of useless space can be quite overwhelming even for some like me. Just to give our listeners a quick example. You remember last month you and I went to San Diego in June for the Turbulence Training Summit and we went to one of the popular gyms called the Fit Athletics Club. Its probably one of the nicest gyms in the country. Probably one of the nicest gyms I have ever been too.

Mike: Oh yeah without a doubt

Daniel: Even with all the equipment in there it was so overwhelming even to me and I am a fitness expert. I didn’t even know what half the machines were. So I can’t even image what your everyday person who is starting their first fitness program and is walking in there. They are going to be just overwhelmed by everything going on. It’s setting them up for failure before they even start.

So in my kickboxing studio there is no fancy machines, no cardio equipment, no wasted space. Just free weights and some bags. We do all bodyweight exercises, there are some fun toys like TRX straps, pull-up bars, sand bags, kettelbells but for the most part we just do advance bodyweight exercises with strategic reference sets. Just to give you an example.

It’s a 30 min workout, starting with a warm up circuit, with some bodyweight exercises to get the blood flowing and to help with mobility. Like jump rope, birddog, few pushups, plank variations, Spiderman climbs, and reaches. Just to get the body prepared for the workout. You see a lot of people these days jump on a treadmill for their warm up and many of you know that isn’t the proper way to warm up. You also have to remember Mike, most people come after sitting behind a computer all day so they are stiff and they need some dynamic mobility exercises before getting into the meat of the workout. So that is the important part of any workout. Especially our kickboxing workouts.

So after we do the dynamic mobility exercisers we’ll transition to the metabolic density circuits. I like to combined advance bodyweight exercise with kickboxing movements. So a lot of times what we will do is pare two or three no competing exercise together focusing on rep themes and movement patters. Just to give you an example:

Squat Punch – You will add a punch movement at the end of a squat position. So here you are combining two exercises in one movement which is always going to add a couple of benefits.

First benefit – You’re cutting your workout time basically in half. So, instead of doing a squat exercise by itself then doing a completely different exercise like a punch. We are combining those two movements; therefore we are utilizing our precious time to its fullest. Like you said, often times we have clients who are really busy and don’t have a lot of time to spend in a gym.

The second benefit to preforming a squat punch is using more muscle groups by combining a lower body exercise with a squat and an upper body exercise with the punch and your core is being targeted by both these exercises as well, which is a very important factor.

So just to give you an idea of one of the circuits we do. Let’s say we do 12 reps with a squat punch and then I might even have them hold an isometric position at the bottom of a squat for about 15 seconds. So if we do 12 squat to punch and a 15 second hold at the bottom of a squat and then transition them into a some type of a pushup movement, like a regular pushup, close grip pushup, T-pushup, Spiderman pushup any type of pushup variation, then the third exercise would be something like a side plank punch for ten reps per side.

So then we’ll take them through those three exercises for three minutes, doing that circuit as many times as you can. That’s where you’re density training from. We’ll try to get through these three exercises in three minutes as many times as we can but if your form starts to break down we tell them they need a rest to gain control before they can go back. Obviously, form is the most important part and the last thing we want is for a client to get injured. So we’ll start that circuit for three minutes resting for 30 sec. They will either repeat the circuit or move onto another circuit this time increasing number of times they went through it.

So let’s say the first time they went through it three and a half times. The next time they will get through it four times improving on their work capacity which is one of the big key components in density training. So we’ll take them through four or five circuits for a 30 minute workout. We give them a “high five” then talk to them about their workout and how they felt. Then send them back to their busy lifestyle.

So what I found is people really like this style because it’s a unique body weight workout in only 30 minutes and we don’t waste anyone’s time, we get them results. We actually coach them through the processes, don’t coach them through the workout by saying “just do squats” and send them on their way. We are actually coaching them and explaining to them what they should be feeling that’s a key factor in personal training, which unfortunately a lot of personal trainers’ don do these days. They are either on the phone or on their emails and don’t pay attraction to their clients. That is defiantly not what we do or what we want in our gym.

Basically our gym is unique. It’s fun, it’s challenging, it’s fast passed, and it’s a great stress release. I find it gives people a lot of confidence. Punching and kicking is an overall good feeling.

We’ll get some people who come in during lunch having a stressful day. And in the 30 minute giving them a different environment they are able to release all the stress and anger, it’s a really cool concept and a recall cool feeling for people. That is probably the main reason why our gym has been so successful and it makes it so unique from your typical big box gyms.

Craig Ballantyne is a Strength & Conditioning coach in Toronto, author of Turbulence Training, a contributing author to Men’s Health magazine, and a member of the Training Advisory Board for Maximum Fitness and Oxygen magazines. Craig’s fat loss, muscle-building website TurbulenceTraining.com features his best-selling Turbulence Training for Fat Loss program and TTmembers.com offers access...